Girls Cross Country: Team effort leads to lofty heights for Naperville North

Updated: November 8, 2011 8:02PM

The Naperville North girls cross country team’s third-place finish at the Class 3A state meet Saturday in Peoria really was months in the making.

The Huskies laid the foundation for their triumphant season back in August, during the team’s annual camping trip. There, they discussed goals for the upcoming season.

“The girls had a pretty frank discussion with each other as far as what they felt like they should set their sights on and how they felt like they should do,” Naperville North coach Dan Iverson recalled. “And I was pretty clear with them that there would be some pretty heavy obstacles — they set their sights up near the top of the stage — and they didn’t seem to care. They were very aware that this was not going to be easy and that they were probably going to endure some defeats along the way, but that if they stayed the course and kept working hard, that good things would likely happen.”

And good things certainly did happen.

The Huskies tied for third with St. Charles East with 183 points. Sophomore Maria McDaniel paced Naperville North with her 3-mile time of 17 minutes, 39 seconds, and she finished 31st overall.

Junior Kimber Meyer turned in a 17:49 time to finish 43rd, senior Rachel Weathered clocked in at 17:58 for 52nd place and senior Britney Weizeorick’s 18:05 performance put her 61st individually.

Freshman Elly DeTurris checked in at 18:11 to finish No. 68, followed by senior Emma Shannon (18:40, 117th) and sophomore Alex Moxon, who placed 165th, in 19:09.

Though no team member earned an individual medal for a top-25 performance, the collective effort was good enough to secure a team trophy — awarded to the top three teams.

“We really do buy into the idea that, while it’s really nice to have somebody finish up high, it isn’t really a necessity to have some pretty high-level team success,” Iverson said.

The IHSA initially crowned Naperville North the sole third-place finisher, as Shannon’s time beat St. Charles East No. 6 runner Lizzie Deutsch’s 19:25 time via the tiebreaker rule. Deutsch finished No. 186 overall.

However, the Saints challenged the original ruling because another IHSA rule stated that in the event of a tie, both teams should be awarded team trophies and medals. In the end, the IHSA agreed with St. Charles East that the rules were too vague and the Saints were awarded both a trophy and medals.

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